Hell on Earth
by epalladino
Summary: What would happen if Hellboy had made a different choice? A very dark, definitely AU retelling of the conclusion of the movie. Please read and review.


**Author's notes**: Written for a FanLib contest. The mission was to develop an AU to your fandom, showing how the fandom would be different if different events were to occur. Ratings had to be limited to FanLib's version of T. 

**Disclaimer and warnings:** None of these characters belong to me. Major spoilers for the ending of the movie. Violence and sexual assault hinted at, but nothing graphic.

**Hell on Earth**

**_Deep in the tunnels below Rasputin's Mausoleum  
Moscow, Russia  
Sometime in the first weeks of November 2004_**

"No, Red! Don't do it!" FBI Agent John Myers shouted, struggling fiercely against the fetters chaining him to a granite pillar. Ilsa, Grigori Rasputin's forever-young Nazi lover, dealt a vicious blow to Myers's forehead with the hammer she had just used to destroy the timers on the BPRD's grenades.

Hellboy, lost in a fog of pain and anger, struggled vainly against his own bonds; completely mystified by his inability to break free from this odd yoke. Part of his awareness was absorbed by Rasputin and Ilsa's constant haranguing to use his 'Right Hand of Doom' to open the locks on a huge white monolith and allow the Ogdru Jahad passage to bring destruction to the humanity that had raised him.

The rest of his awareness could only be truly conscious of Liz, the woman he loved more than anything else in this world, lying unconscious on a huge marble altar. An altar cloth, that was almost an odd kind of robe, now replaced her clothing.

"Think of it," Hellboy just barely heard Ilsa's gloating voice, "an Eden for you, and _her_."

Rasputin finally managed to attract Hellboy's full attention by doing the one thing guaranteed to send him over the edge; by ripping Liz's very soul from her body and banishing it into the dark void.

"Nooo!" came Hellboy's guttural scream as he struggled even harder against his intractable bonds.

"If you want her back, open the locks and claim her." Hellboy could barely hear the rest of Rasputin's speech through a miasma of grief and his own incoherent sobbing shouts. Any further pleas from John Myers went completely unheeded.

"The eclipse, it is beginning," came Ilsa's excited, almost reverent voice.

Rasputin noticed that only one memento remained to Hellboy of the human male who had raised him; one vestige left of the loving control this now murdered man had exerted over the demon he had called his son. Reaching down, Rasputin ripped from Hellboy's left wrist the rosary wrapped around it.

"Your true name," Rasputin shouted as he tossed the now broken rosary away, "Say it!"

Something snapped inside of Hellboy and he sagged against his restraints. "For her," he whispered.

At almost that same moment, John Myers managed to break free from his fetters. Snatching up the broken remnants of the late Trevor Broom's rosary, he desperately tried to get the now freed Hellboy's attention by shouting and throwing the once cherished relic at him.

Somewhere buried deep within the powerful demon Anung un Rama, there was a trace left of the being once known as 'Hellboy'. He could hear John Myers shouting "Remember who you are!" but had no strength left with which to derail the action he had so foolishly initiated. Anung un Rama barely noticed the rosary caught in its left hand. Dropping it in disinterest, the demon continued using its huge stone hand to unlock the gate that separated the Earth from the destruction that lay beyond.

A newly revived Liz sat up and looked about her in confusion; the altar cloth partially slipping down to reveal an expanse of creamy skin. Trembling in fear, she became aware of the enormous portal that now slashed through the fabric of the universe; aware of the frantic screams of colleague John Myers, as he was ripped limb-from-limb by an enormous demonic creature with a huge stone right hand.

As that horned creature turned toward her, Liz barely recognized in that hideous shape one who had always treated her with an inarticulate love and a shy respect. Whimpering, she cringed away as the stone hand that only ever touched her in gentleness roughly forced her back onto the cold marble.

Anung un Rama's triumphant roar shook the heavens as it contemptuously tossed aside the spent husk of the woman Hellboy once loved. A hellish grin crossed its face as it joined Rasputin and Ilsa in watching the huge tentacles of the Ogdru Jahad completely obliterate humanity and all its vain works.

_Thanks for reading. All feedback welcome, Beth Palladino_

_For my own more upbeat retelling of the conclusion to Hellboy, read my fic Remember Who You Are._

_I've read a few other AUs to the ending of Hellboy. Most went a similar direction to my own, but strayed into M or NC-17 territory. It was a real challenge to keep this to a T rating._


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